Notes from the Underside of Pop Culture

Well, not the "underside" per se, I just liked the sound of that. But anyway, a few random thoughts on stuff:

:: The official costume for the new David E. Kelley Wonder Woman show got its big reveal right before I went on my brief mini-vacation! Oh noes! So, what do I think of this?



I'm not a fan. I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan of it, either. It just looks like what it is: a costume made out of latex, so I assume that the show's sound editors will have a busy time of it just erasing out all of that nice latex-y squeaking. Frankly, this costume looks to me like what your stripper would show up in -- the one you hired to show up to your comic book-loving buddy's stag party.

And David E. Kelley is writing it. Ugh.

:: I am really liking the way Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is looking.



I'm a huge fan of these movies, of course; in addition to the first one, I loved the sequels as well. I can't wait for this.

:: I'm also very excited about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 2). While in Pittsburgh, we discovered that the ABC Family channel was doing a Harry Potter weekend, showing all of the first five or six films, so there was always some Harry Potter on when we were there. No, we didn't watch any of them all the way through, but we did catch this "sneak preview" of the forthcoming final film (which includes some standard-type musings from castmembers and the director):



I am generally of the view that the Harry Potter films are actually quite underrated. The bar they've managed to clear is really very impressive: a series of eight films, and (thus far) there's not a dud in the bunch. Especially considering that there have been four different directors, and yet even with the resulting different directorial "touches", much has been consistent throughout. I tip my hat to the producers for keeping their eyes on the ball for so long.

Along that line, I'm really going to miss the Potterverse when it's all wrapped up. It's just too rich of a universe to be done with! We need more stories set there...just as soon as JK Rowling figures out how to do that without having it be Hogwarts: The Next Generation, or Hogwarts: The New Class, or Hogwarts: The College Years, or AfterHogwarts.